Using Sound Plugins Effectively

If you are familiar with free effect, or mixing, plugins then you have no doubt heard about these VST software. In this tutorial, I’ll show you what they can do and how to use them properly for mixing and a bit of sound design.

Presently, they’re only 32-bit compatible so, in 64-bit DAW programs, you'll need to use a VST wrapper such as jBridge for Windows.

epicVerb, a reverb effect which has got both normal reverberator and a more different ambience processor

ThrillseekerXTC blue, a nice three band mastering EQ with saturation

BaxterEQ, a mastering EQ with low shelf and high shelf bands

These are the plugins we are going to use in the tutorial / Picture by author

Project Basics

I shall use Ableton Suite for the project with a tempo of 128 BPM and a rhythm signature of 4/4.

Project with 128 BPM and 4/4 rhythm signature

About the Music

The piece is a short electronic dance music track idea featuring big pianos, several synth effects and white noise.

Pianos and synth tracks

Workflow

Before starting mixing, I froze and made flat all the tracks then copied all to the time line, in the arrangement view.

Kick

This is the basis of the dance track. It has impact, because of the volume, the saturation using NastyVCS and finally an EQ to make it more knocky.

Effects chain:

NastyVCS, saturation at 2

EQ Eight, shelving cut at 1 kHz with -9.5 dB and Q of 10.1

Saturation used with a setting of 2

Loop

An accompaniment of hi-hats and snares. I used Nasty and EQ Eight, here, as well. I reduced the high content of the loop, to make room for other sounds.

Effects chain:

NastyVCS, prefilter HP at 250 Hz

EQ Eight, low pass at 12 kHz with a Q of 0.71

HP filter used on NastyVCS

Bass

I shaped the tone of the bass with TesslaSE's fine saturation then sidechained to the kick. A low pass filter removed the top end and then EQ Eight removed the subs to make room for other low end content.

Piano Hi

Piano Group

This gives more volume and a bit of reductive filtering to the piano section.

Effects chain:

Utility, +5 dB amplification

NastyVCS, prefilter LP 8.5 kHz, HP 200 Hz

Filtering duties with NastyVCS

Lead

This is a fast and sharp synth sound. I added some air with ThrillseekerXTC and spiced with Ping Pong Delay to spread in the stereo field.

Effects chain:

ThrillseekerXTC, air band +8 at 5 kHz, +8.5 at output to compensate volume drop

Ping Pong Delay, 20% feedback 22% dry wet

NastyVCS, prefilter HP at 300 Hz

To bring out the top I added a lot of air with ThrillseekerXTC blue

Synth fx1

No effects here.

Synth fx2

I added Chorus to give more stereo to it.

Effects chain:

Chorus, medium amount, medium rate, dry wet 34%

Utility, +6 dB gain to compensate Chorus effect volume drop

Utility used to compensate volume drop

Synth fx3

I made the dynamics more dense with the compressor part of NastyVCS.

Effects chain: NastyVCS, compressor at 12 or maximum

Maximum compression used on synth fx3 to make a different sound

Fx Group

I used a Ping Pong Delay to widen the stereo information of the section.

Effects chain:

Ping Pong Delay, 41% feedback, 34% dry wet

Utility, +3 dB to compensate volume drop

NastyVCS, prefilter HP at 250 Hz

The Ping Pong Delay widens the strereo content

Noise

This is a rhytmic whitenoise sound with reverb and made lower sounding with BaxterEQ's maximum shelving cut.

Effects chain:

epicVerb, reverb type at 355 msec with plate mode, 0 predelay

NastyVCS, prefilter HP at 250 Hz

BaxterEQ, high shelving cut -5 dB at 3.4 kHz on both sides

I cut the top end with BaxterEQ at 3.4 kHz

Master

I removed some of the subs with EQ Eight to make more headroom and added a Limiter to kill peaks causing distortion.

Effects chain:

EQ Eight, 4x times lo cut at 45 Hz with 0.71 Q

Limiter, default setting, 0 dB gain

EQ and Limiter on the master channel

Export Settings

To make proper end result I used the following settings:

file type: WAV

sample rate: 44100 Hz

bit depth: 24 bits

dither: no dither

I used 44.1 kHz sample rate and 24 bits depth

Conclusion

In this tutorial, I demonstrated how to mix with Variety of Sound plugins on drums, bass, piano, synths, and noise. I used Ableton stock plugins like Limiter, EQ Eight, Chorus and Utility. In some cases I decided to use NastyVCS to filter out low frequency content.

Let me know in the comments below if you have questions on how to use them for more purposes or for other instruments.